Double carp, 1650�1700. China. Qing dynasty (1644�1911). Nephrite. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60J337. Photograph by Kaz Tsuruta. From the exhibition Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art on view at the Asian Art Museum from October 7 through December 31, 2006. PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS IMAGE SOLELY IN CONNECTION WITH A REVIEW OR EDITORIAL COMMENTARY ON THE ABOVE-SPECIFIED EXHIBITION. ALL OTHER REPRODUCTIONS ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND/OR MUSEUM.

Photo: Kaz Tsuruta.

Double carp, 1650�1700. China. Qing dynasty (1644�1911)....

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Plate with crane and longevity character. China. Ming dynasty (1368�1644), reign of the Jiajing emperor (1522�1566). Porcelain with underglaze-blue decoration. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P1532. Photograph by Kaz Tsuruta. From the exhibition Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art on view at the Asian Art Museum from October 7 through December 31, 2006. PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS IMAGE SOLELY IN CONNECTION WITH A REVIEW OR EDITORIAL COMMENTARY ON THE ABOVE-SPECIFIED EXHIBITION. ALL OTHER REPRODUCTIONS ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND/OR MUSEUM.

"Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art" opened Saturday at the Asian Art Museum, announcing in grand style a new museum publication that any visitor with the slightest interest in the classical Chinese arts will want to own.

She also produced the accompanying book, "Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art," a densely illustrated lexicon that opens the communicative dimension of the Chinese arts as few sources have before.

Most of the artifacts wear their "hidden meanings" openly, for the viewer who knows how to read them. Encipherment often takes the form of decoration, which has its own charms, even when illegible.

Some objects, made as gifts, function as symbols through and through.

Consider a tiny Qing Dynasty nephrite sculpture of two carp, which may have served as a marriage gift.

To Western eyes, it may recall several versions of Constantin Brancusi's modernist classic "The Kiss" -- the two fish pressed together vertically, their tails and whiskers entwined.

In Chinese tradition, fish, carp especially, because they are believed to swim in pairs, symbolize marital companionship, fecundity and happiness in one's element. Only speakers of Chinese will recognize a linguistic pun embedded in this piece: the distinct Chinese characters for "fish" and "abundance" being both pronounced "yu."

Such knowledge, even when we gain it by reading label copy, complicates our view of the object in question.

In fact, Bartholomew's whole project reawakens questions of connoisseurship: New understanding of the meanings things carry reignites interest in deciding how well a given artifact fulfills its purpose.

Most of the things on view fall into the category of decorative arts, not only because they had mainly ornamental or ceremonial uses, but because they marry substance and what we see as decoration with keen energy.

Many objects of modest scale make big impressions for their liveliness of fabrication and design. A small circular porcelain plate from the reign of the Jiajing Emperor (1522-1566) bears a complex pattern in blue that looks almost abstract at a glance but bursts with symbolic meaning.

A medallion containing the character for longevity surmounts a tangle of figures composed of other longevity symbols: cranes, peaches and a mountain from which springs the "fungus of immortality." They coalesce into a pattern that evokes the sea -- a "sea of blessings."

The exhibition organizes objects into eight thematic categories that set limits on what seems at first like an unmanageable variety of examples. The categories reflect the anachronism of some cryptic signifiers and the relative timelessness of others: blessings, weddings, sons, passing exams, official rank, wealth, longevity and "peace and as you wish."

The imperial bureaucracy of ancient China differed in many important ways from that of the turbulent modern and post-modern state. The old system of achieving rank and financial security by scholarly examination long ago gave way to new social rites and complexities. But some of the objects on view embody or bear symbols once believed auspicious to someone anticipating or enjoying the upward mobility that achievement of rank promised.

A striking example is an 18th century "Meiping" vase. Using a blue-on-white decoration that reverses figure and ground, reprising a 15th century style, it evokes a dragon -- a symbol of the emperor, thus of elevated status -- and perhaps also mountains and sea.

Moving through "Hidden Meanings," I thought of William T. Wiley's recent work on view (through Saturday) at the John Berggruen Gallery. Wiley builds words, puns and loaded homonyms into his paintings but he can only strut the impossibility of unifying them. To achieve the unity of meaning and object we see in the high points of "Hidden Meanings" perhaps requires the support of an entire culture and tradition. Can any modern artist in the West claim to have it?